Ellis Peters - George Felse 07 - The Grass Widow's Tale (12 page)

He wanted to turn his head the few necessary inches, and press his lips into her palm, but he didn’t do it, because he had no rights in her at all but those she had given him freely, and they were not that kind of rights. Until they were out of here—if they ever got out of here alive—there was nothing he could say to her, though his heart might be bursting. Afterwards, if they could clear up this affair with all its debts and start afresh, things might go very differently. But the darkness in which they stood seemed to him a symbolic as well as an actual darkness, and he couldn’t see anything ahead. And there might not be any more time for talking, to-night or ever.

“Bunty, I’m sorry!” he breathed, and that seemed to be it. He had never been so short of words, and in any case, what good were they?

“For what? For getting into a mess through no real fault of your own?”

“For everything I’ve done to you. For involving you. I wish I could undo it,” he said. “Forgive me!”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You couldn’t have involved me if I hadn’t involved myself. No debts either way. Simply, it happened.”

“No… I began as your… murderer…” The word was almost inaudible, lost in the tangle of her hair. “Don’t let me end like that now. I’ll make the chance and you must go. That’s why you
must
… I can bear it if
you
get back safely… I’ll be satisfied then.”

And he meant it. If she had come out like a pilgrim, looking for something uniquely her own, some justification of her whole life to show to the gate-keepers and the gods when her time came, she had it. For every journey, even the last one, you need a ticket.

The dulled accompaniment of voices and movements from the kitchen had halted, recommenced, changed, and the two of them in their narrow prison had never noticed. Nor could they hear the approach of the car through so many layers of insulation. The first they knew of the boss’s arrival was when the door of the store-cupboard was suddenly flung open, and Skinner beckoned them out into the light. They came, dazzled for a while after such a darkness, eyes wide and dazed from staring into a different kind of light. Luke kept his arm about Bunty as they were herded through the kitchen and into the living-room.

And the living-room was full of a large, restless, top-heavy man in a light overcoat and a deeper grey suit, standing astride the orange-coloured rug. It was a still night, but he seemed somewhere to have found a reserve of tempestuous wind, and brought it into the house in the folds of his well-tailored but untamed clothes, so that the room seemed suddenly gusty and tremulous, convulsed with the excess of his energy. He was nearly half a head taller than Luke, and twice as wide, massive shoulders and barrel chest tapering away to long, narrow flanks. For all that bulk, he moved with a violent elegance that was half exuberant health and half almost psychotic self-confidence and self-love. He straddled the floor and looked them all over with the eye of a proprietor, viewing a new acquisition which didn’t look like much now, but of which he could make something in double-quick time, and something profitable, too.

His head was big, to match his shoulders, and startlingly rough-hewn after the disguise of his immaculate clothes ended at the collar; a head of crude, bold lines, and a face in which the bone strained glossy beneath the tanned skin, not because there was so little flesh there, but because there was so much bone. He had a forehead ornamented with knobbly projections like incipient horns, and above it bright auburn hair grew low to a widow’s peak. An upright cleft marked his massy chin. The deepset eyes—boxers should have eyes like that, invulnerable, lids and all, in cages of concrete skull, cased with hide like polished horn—twinkled with restless, reddish lights, good-humoured without being in the least reassuring.

…
auburn hair growing low, cleft chin, eyes buried in a lot of bone
...

Luke’s fingers closed meaningly on Bunty’s arm. He couldn’t say anything to her, but there was no need, he had described this man to her so well that even she knew him on sight. This was the man on whose arm Pippa Callier had leaned devotedly as they left her flat together on Friday night, the man whose car had stood all night in the mews round the corner, waiting to take a mythical mother and her mythical cousin home again to Birmingham. How strange that she should have thought she could get away with such a pretence, even for a moment. And how innocent and unpractised it suddenly made her in Bunty’s sight. This was nobody’s cousin, and one could almost believe, nobody’s son. He could have burst out of a rock somewhere of his own elemental force, self-generated and dangerous.

She pressed her elbow into Luke’s side in acknowledgment. But there was no way of telling him that she suddenly found herself better informed even than he was, that she, too, had seen this man before, just once and briefly, too distantly to have known all those details of his appearance, but clearly enough to know his movements again wherever she saw them, the long, arching stride of a man with vigour to spare, the appraising tilt of the big head, the swinging use of the high shoulders. On Friday evening, when he had meant nothing to her, before he changed into the dinner jacket that Luke had found so conspicuous in Queen Street.

Luke knew the boss’s face again, as he had said he would. But Bunty knew more, his trade, his provenance, even his name, that last magic that every elemental being should guard as he guards his life, for in a sense it
is
his life.

This one hadn’t guarded his. He had had it printed on windscreen stickers, blazoned on fluorescent posters, strung along thirty-seven be-flagged frontages in neon lights for all the world to see and memorise.

His name was Fleet.

The huge newcomer revolved on the heel of a hand-made shoe, taking in all the inhabitants of this minor kingdom of his, and dealing in turn with them all.

“Hah! ” he said, a bark of satisfaction and amusement, as he surveyed Luke from head to foot with one flash of his coarse-cut-marmalade eyes. “I see you got the right party, anyhow. That’s something!”

The snapping gaze swept over Bunty with interest, sized her up with casual appreciation, and flicked another glance at Luke. “Well, get that! He finds new ones fast. Who’d have thought it!”

He tossed the key he was swinging across to Skinner. “Turn the Jag round, will you, and wheel it up to the gate ready for off. You never know, we might have to leave on the hop.”

The skirt of his pearl-grey Terylene overcoat whirled, and another spin brought him to Quilley. “What’s the matter with
you
?” There was no sympathy in the inquiry, rather a note of outrage, even of immediate reserve. His employees had no business to get hurt on duty.

“I stopped one, boss. He had a gun.”

“Couldn’t you bet on him having a gun?” Bunty had the impression for one instant that he had almost said “
The
gun”, and thought better of it in time. “What’s up, then? How bad is it?” The top span, and he confronted Blackie. “If he’s a write-off for anything active, we can use him upstairs. Why haven’t you got someone up there keeping a watch out? I tell you, half the constabulary could be walking in on us, and you sitting here playing hide and seek.”

“Somebody’d have been up there any minute now,” said Blackie, without noticeable chagrin; and indeed, the big man’s voice, vibrant, full and pleasantly pitched, had no displeasure in it, he flashed and fulminated from excess of energy, and took delight in it as a kind of self-expression.

“Yeah, I know, because you cleaned up down here! All right, then, Quilley, get up there and keep a watch out front and back both. You can take it easy up there, just so you don’t miss any movements around this place.”

“He can start looking around inside, too,” said Blackie. “Because it ain’t in here, it ain’t in the kitchen or back there. And these two are playing dumb and daft.”

“It has to be somewhere here. Stands to sense. Go take that little front room apart, Skinner, and then go up and join Quilley. If he’s there by then.” He cast a thoughtful eye at Quilley’s painful and laborious progress across the room and out to the stairs. “They get old and slow,” said Fleet with tolerant regret, like a practical farmer contemplating putting down a worn-out horse. And he peeled off his smart driving gloves, dove grey and tan, and dropped them on the table, beside the scattered belongings they had taken from Luke’s pockets.

“These what were on him?” He pawed them over thoughtfully. “Keys… several. His own bunch… house… car… suitcase? That’ll be upstairs… or had he got it away somewhere?”

“It’s upstairs. They never had time to take anything with ’em, they just ran when they heard us. There’s a way down to the water, and a boat-house down there. Locked. I reckon this would be the key to that. He had it in his coat pocket, along with the gun. This one’s the back door. We sprung that, it was an easy touch. The front we had to bust.”

“And what’s this other one?”

Echoing hollowly down the wall of the stairs dead on cue, Quilley’s voice, dutifully anxious to please, reported: “Boss, there’s one of these bedrooms locked up.” He was hopeful of a discovery. A locked door was promising.

“That’ll be it,” said Fleet, pleased. “There’s a key here could belong to it,” he called. “Skinner, come and take it up to him, see what he’s got there. And better have a quick look through the suitcase.”

Skinner came at leisure, cheerful as ever; it began to seem a lunatic cheerfulness.

“And now,” said Fleet, dusting his hands, “suppose you two sit down prettily over there, where we can keep an eye on you, and we’ll have our little talk.”

He caught a dining-chair by the back, and swung it into a reversed position in front of the wicker settee, to which Con had again herded his prisoners. The light skirts of the pearl-grey coat whisked out like wings. Fleet sat down astride the chair, and leaned his folded arms comfortably on the back.

“Straight to the point, that’s me.
Where’s the money
?”

“What money?” said Luke woodenly. “I know nothing about any money.”

“Pippa Gallier didn’t bring any money over to my place Saturday evening. I’m a reasonable man, I’ll try to help you remember.”

“Pippa Gallier didn’t bring any money over to my place Saturday evening,” said Luke. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Kiddo, she sure as fate didn’t bring it Friday evening, but who’s arguing about dates? She brought it. She was shinning out, and you were the ferryman. You may as well tell me now what you’ve done with it, because I’m going to find out in the end.”

“She never brought any money to me, I’m telling you.”

“You’re telling me fairy-tales, kid, but go ahead. I’ve got time.”

Uninvited, Bunty said in a hard, detached voice:

“That’s what you think. But what you don’t know is that the police have been here before you. This morning. I got rid of them then, but what I told them isn’t going to last them long. My bet is they could be back any moment now. I expected them before this. You don’t think this place
belongs
to him, do you?”

Fleet turned his head the little way that was necessary, and gave her his full attention for the first time. She sat with fixed, motionless face, smoothing a chipped nail on one hand, but at Fleet’s persistent stare she raised to him the full hazel glance of her eyes, wide and unwavering.

“You know,” said Fleet, “you’re not at all hard to look at, now I come to notice, but girl, you’re no hand at lying.”

“That makes it even funnier,” said Runty, unmoved, “because I’m not lying. But you know it all. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

It was essential that none of these men should suspect how easy it would be to wring concessions from her by tormenting Luke, or from Luke by tormenting her. She had even toyed momentarily with the idea of trying to act the part of a disillusioned pick-up with cheapened accent and roughened voice, but she knew she couldn’t make a job of it. And it occurred to her now that that might not have confused Fleet in the slightest, while this more unexpected female companion put him slightly off his immaculate stride. And all the while she was straining her ears after what was happening upstairs. Maybe they were turning out Luke’s suitcase first, as the best bet. But the discovery couldn’t be long now. Her nerves tightened, waiting for it.

“And where,” inquired Fleet curiously, “did he find you? It sure didn’t take him long. I wouldn’t have thought he was that quick off the mark.”

“I picked her up in a pub,” Luke said harshly. “I should have left her there.”

The words were acknowledgment enough of the lead she had given him, and fitted the image of indifference now turning to resentment. It was lucky that they were also true, Bunty thought, for up to then she had no great opinion of Luke’s potentialities as a liar.

And it was at that moment that the pair upstairs unlocked the door of the guest bedroom, and walked in upon the treasure secreted there.

The cry that came hollowly down the stairs was almost a scream, brief, horrified and unreasonably alarming. Fleet came to his feet in a cat’s alert, hair-triggered leap, whirling the chair away from him across the room. Blackie span round to face the doorway, gun in hand. Con kept his weapon levelled, but even his stony eyes wandered. It was the first moment of disarray, and it was useless. Three here between the prisoners and the door, two more scuttling in haste down the stairs to add to the odds. Luke’s braced muscles ached with longing, but he knew it was no good. He would only succeed in killing them both.

“For Pete’s sake…!” exploded Fleet exasperatedly. “What’s with you two?”

Skinner appeared in the doorway, mouth and eyes wide open, with Quilley limping and shivering at his back.

“In that room, the locked one… You know what’s in there, boss?
She
is… the Gallier girl! He brought her up here with him! She’s there lying on the bed!”

Fleet struck his large, well-kept hands together with a clap like a gun going off and uttered a brief crow of amusement, astonishment and triumph.

“And her things? Is her case here?”

“It’s there.” Blackie indicated the corner where it stood against the wall. “Her bag, too, it’s there on the bookcase. We started with them, but there’s nothing… Well, we
knew .
. .” He swallowed that admission in time. “But I never thought he’d bring
her
all the way up here. I thought he’d ditched her somewhere…”

Fleet came strolling back across the room like a contented cat, long-stepping, disdainful, spread his feet wide before his prisoners, and leaned over them with a benign smile.

“So you don’t know anything about my money, eh? And I take it you know nothing about the girl up there, either? She just flew here! As for the police, they kindly called in this morning, I suppose, and helped you carry her upstairs? Now we know where we stand.”

He plucked back the chair, span it about in one hand, and resumed his place astride it in high good-humour; and the trouble was that Bunty could not for the life of her see how his mind was working. Something obscure and complicated was going on in that formidable skull, something of no advantage to anyone but himself, something that involved and made sense of the body upstairs, and still left him free. He’d admitted nothing, except that he was looking for the money; and such indiscretions as the others had let fall didn’t amount to much, and in any case, she realised with a small leap of her heart, he didn’t know about them, and was planning whatever he was planning without taking them into account. He was
pleased
about Pippa being here in the house, it had suggested something to him, something neat and workmanlike that afforded for him an effective exit. Bunty wished she knew what it was.

“So you brought her body up here, and all her things, and left the deck clean. Nobody could blame you for that, either, kid, nor for bringing the money along, too. Where was it? Not in her case, I know that… I was looking for it, while you were still out cold…
right after you shot her
…”

His voice moved like a cat, too, suavely and softly and bonelessly along the insinuating sentences, and pounced suddenly, a fishing cat. But the flashing paw clawed up more than he had bargained for. Until that moment it had not dawned on either of his listeners that he might well be in doubt as to how much Luke knew about the events of Saturday night, and how guilty he believed himself to be. A little push in the right direction might get him the information he needed. But it was a chance two could take; and the right reaction might even provide them with a slender and precarious advantage.

Luke closed his eyes and sank his head in his hands. He made no attempt to deny anything. Bunty held her breath, feeling her way after him blindly.

“So I reckon the money was in the one place I couldn’t get at.
In the car
…”

“The car’s clean,” said Blackie. “Skinner took it apart.”

“
Now
it’s clean. But that’s where the stuff was. Must have been. We looked everywhere else. So you found it, kiddo, and you were all set to make a clean get-away with it, is that it? After all, you had to run, they’d soon be after you for murder. Better run with a nice little nest-egg like that than without it. You know what, I’ve got a lot of sympathy for you! She was a crooked little bitch, if ever there was one. Crossed you up for me, and crossed me up for the money I trusted her with. She asked for what you gave her. If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else. The way I felt when I found she’d cut and run with my money, I tell you straight, it might have been
me
if you hadn’t got in first.”

“I was drunk,” protested Luke from behind his sheltering hands, and the dark hair shook forward over his brow and helped to hide his face. His voice was high and unsteady, it would do well enough for an ordinary, harmless young man who had been running all day from the nightmare knowledge that he was a murderer. “I didn’t even
know
,” he said, writhing. “She waved the damn gun at me… she made me mad…”

“I know! She asked for it. I’m not planning on turning you in for that.”

Not this time, thought Bunty; because you’ve thought of something better. I wish I knew what it is! I wish I knew, I wish Luke knew, exactly how much of that quarrel you did overhear.

Luke looked up mistrustfully under his disordered hair. The big man loomed over him mountainous and daunting, his face in shadow.

“What were you planning on doing?… you and the lady? I hear there’s a boat… was that it? You reckon you could make it across to the Continent from here?”

“Yes, I could make it… I
could
have made it,” Luke corrected himself bitterly, “if you hadn’t sent this lot after us.”

“And Pippa? She was going half-way, I suppose?”

The dark head drooped again, the thin hands came up and scrubbed wearily at the thin cheeks. An almost inaudible voice said: “Yes…”

“Look,” said Fleet reasonably, “I’m not a cop. I’ve got nothing against you. Why should I have? She did the dirty on both of us, I’ve got a fellow feeling for you. There’s no reason in the world why you and I shouldn’t do a deal.”

He was, in his way, a marvellous performer. To look at him sitting there, his rocky face placid and benevolent, was almost to believe in his genuineness. He could create a kind of hallucination even when you knew he was lying, by the sheer force of his energy. Yet at the same time he had produced on Bunty an effect for which not even she was prepared. Up to now she had merely reasoned that this man had killed Pippa with his own hands; now, perversely, she knew it. Not these others, not even Con with his cold, impervious eyes—Fleet.

Luke lifted his head and studied the face before him with eyes narrowed in calculation; and somewhere deep in those wary pupils a spark of hope and encouragement came to life.